I mentioned last week about going to Europe and all that. Well, last evening I was reminded of a phrase I get a LOT from people: “It’s very different living in Europe.”

No. Fucking. Shit. Sherlock.

I’ve asked people to elaborate. Some give me reasonable answers, etc, such as about grocery shopping (usually daily and no stocking up like we do here) and the like… but then I get the “American stereotype” answer: “Well, there aren’t as many malls and fast food places like you might be used to there. America has so much excess…” you get the idea.

Whenever people tell me this one, it makes it abundantly clear they don’t know jack shit about me. Do I like having up to date computers? Sure. Do I need the latest and fastest thing on the planet? No. Having worked too many years in retail, I HATE Black Friday. With such an unadulterated passion, you would likely question my sanity… or my drug use. Both of which are reasonably fine.

I have no interest in the latest and greatest items out there. I don’t care about name brands to the point of obsession. I certainly don’t go nuts over designers. I’m not a stereotypical “American.” I have things, yes. Many of these things mean something to me. They aren’t the “latest and greatest” out of whatever company.

So, yes, it’s different there. I WANT that. I CRAVE it. I want to see what life is like outside of this materialistic economy and mindset. I like change. I like new experiences. I’m the one who just picked up and moved to different states THREE TIMES in the last 16 years. I have to plan things a lot more with going overseas, but still, moving there isn’t the issue. Living there and adapting to the culture isn’t an issue. It’s the closed-minded attitudes of people who prefer to stay close to home, as it were, that is the issue.

And don’t get me going on the whole “American Dream” bullshit. The white picket fence, husband, 2.5 kids, dog and cat, nice working cars in the garage, etc… BLECH.

Give me a space I can adapt to my own needs. A place close to a food market, flower stalls, quiet streets with some solid history emanating from the walls of the buildings lining it. Let me be free to live MY life, by my standards and choices. I’m not interested in having a husband and kids (and really, I’m almost 45. I ain’t pushing babies out at this point). Don’t tell me what my life should be like. Let me determine that.

Yesterday, I had my first (in a while) catcalling run-in. Yeesh. I have a fucking mohawk. I’m not some uber-femme type. And yet, some jackass in a van was catcalling me. I had a brief moment of being tempted to yell back at him to go fuck himself… or at least give him the finger.

But I refrained. Why? Because of Toxic Masculinity. Far too many men think we, as women, even those of us who are genderfluid women (that sounds odd, but I do mostly still identify female… my boobs ain’t going away), OWE them. We’re supposed to acknowledge their catcalls and pushiness and be delicate little femme flowers and be appreciative of their attention.

Fuck their attention. I’m not on this planet to be put on some fucking pedestal for some jackass to catcall. I’m not here for their fapping fantasies. I’m here for me. To do the things I love to do… which, if you have not figured out by now, is not being a girly girl fragile little princess needing to be saved by some ego-maniacal jackass on a white horse.

The only saving I need is a little financial help to regain access to storage. So, help if you can, share the YouCaring link or PP if you can’t donate… or do both… I’m cool with that.

The phrase “Don’t try to fix me. I’m not broken” from Evanscence resonates with me on many levels and for many reasons. From my depression to my C-PTSD, from my phases of suicidal ideation to my sexuality. Even something as mundane as being a Creative and trying to find my place in a working society with gainful employment.

Whenever I get frustrated with my job search, I get told to just take whatever comes along. But I end up sacrificing who and what I am to “fit in” … I’m told I need to be just like everyone else and why can’t I be that way? I need to conform, etc…

No, actually, I don’t. No one should be forced to conform to what our society thinks is the ideal. I tried to blend in during my 20’s. Yeah, that didn’t work so well.

And then there are more serious things. My history of suicidal tendencies, sexual assault, emotional and psychological abuse. Did these things damage me?

Yes.

If they didn’t, I wouldn’t be human (although Dragon does come out and play, I am still very much a human… she just gets cranky sometimes and wants to take over). Did these things break me?

No.

If they had, I wouldn’t be alive today. If the hell my ex has put me through had broken me, I would have killed myself long ago. But I didn’t. I still haven’t. In fact, I find myself getting stronger emotionally. I am no longer afraid of him.

And then there’s my sexuality… and now I’m leaning toward being genderfluid/genderqueer. I know one thing… I’m glad my mother wasn’t of sound mind when I realized I was asexual in 2009. She would have flipped her shit. Dad understood, but still wasn’t fully on board. My gender would likely have been slightly different, yet I don’t know exactly how he would have acted. I was his baby girl. But he also always knew I was a tomboy as a kid. I have always been more at home in hardware stores than dress shops.

One almost constant remark I get from people (usually men, older people, etc) is that I just “need to find the right guy” to change my mind about sex. My sexuality, which has NOTHING to do with the act of sex, is not a sign of being broken. This is how I was born. I’m wired this way. Did “you” choose to be heterosexual? Likely not. I did not choose to be asexual. I experience no sexual attraction (I do admit to admiring some male actors and such and make comments about them that could be construed as sexual.. I mean, I’m sorry, but Tom Hiddleston is damn gorgeous, but that doesn’t mean I want to do anything with him… other than hang out on the couch and watch movies and cuddle… I could handle cuddling with him).

The attitude is that because I’m not sexually active and dating and showing an interest sexually in anyone, that I *must* be “broken.”

I’m not.

It’s in my genetics. This is how I’m wired.

So I want to get a tattoo. Well, I want to get several of them. I still want my Rat, and the semicolon. But unless I find a better spot, I want to put this one down my spine, one word at a time:

Don’t

try

to

fix

me.

I’m

not

broken.

Before venturing down this rabbit hole, I will say this: Figuring out I was Asexual was a whole fucking lot easier than this. I knew, in my core, that sexual attraction was virtually non-existent for me. Also, in part due to my C-PTSD, I’m leaning toward being Aromantic as well… do I occasionally like romantic things? Yeah, sure… but wanting to -participate- in romantic things… no. My romantic leanings are much more fluid than my sexuality. I don’t find women even romantically attractive, but that isn’t the only other option to being hetero-romantic. Seriously, folks. There’s a shit-ton of territory to cover. But I digress… romantic and sexual orientations are not the territory I’m delving into…

Years ago, when I first realized I was asexual, one of the first people I told was a friend who had called me late in the evening, drunker than a skunk in a poppy field, and depressed about his work vehicle (which had all the tools of his then-livelihood in it) totaled while parked… some jackass slammed into it with their vehicle. Because this friend was drunk while we were talking, he kept confusing asexuality with androgyny. Also keep in mind, my boobs were a LOT bigger back then (thank you, Bast, for surgery in 2015). It wasn’t until the next morning that I realized he was referring to Androgyny. He kept focusing on looks and not what asexuality is… which is more internal, not external.

Here I am, closing in on 8 years of knowing my sexuality. And now I’m wondering about my gender representation. Here we go down the rabbit hole.

Ever since childhood, I’ve been classified as a tomboy. I hated dresses about 95% of the time, preferred climbing things, playing the dragon-slaying knight instead of a damsel in distress, destroying my Barbie dolls (realizing their hair does not grow back… whoops), and generally doing things that were not assigned a gender. I had dolls. I played with Legos. I read and wrote about science, science fiction, and fantasy. I dreamed of being an astronaut and begged to go to Space Camp (never did).

Later, in high school, I still rarely wore dresses, opting for skinny leather lace up boots, stirrup pants, concert shirts and either a beret (black) or a cotton fedora (also black). My clothing was neutral for the most part. I hated jeans but that was mostly because they tapered in to the waist and were uncomfortable for my very short-waisted body type.

In my 20’s, I still blurred the lines. Black high heeled boots, black leggings, a white ruffled shirt (or something more plain), and longer hair (think kinda like how Prince dressed, just less flashy). The next day I could be wearing sweat pants and a grungy t-shirt. When I worked in retail, I wore heels and mens’ dress shirts… and their ties. I loved wearing ties. Hell, even today, if I see one at Goodwill that I like, I get it.

Since then, my clothing has become more relaxed… but my choices in clothes have always blurred those lines. I prefer shopping for some things in the mens departments… mostly because they’ll fit my broad shoulders and broad ribcage better (thank you to my Swiss grandpa for that). I still like wearing skirts (I usually make my own when the mood strikes) and I tend to wear dresses for interviews. I rarely wear makeup (cosplay and job interviews, and even then, the bare minimum). I can no longer wear piercings of any kind due to a metal allergy. And my hair is currently cut as a mohawk… which I love. My hair (and the cowlicks on my scalp) has a mind of its own… especially on the sides. So, keeping the sides shaved super-close and the top and back longer keeps my frustration levels down.

So I’m looking at the terms that surround Gender Neutral. When I said at the start that realizing I was asexual was easier, I was NOT joking. I feel I may simply be Androgynous. I am fine with female pronouns… I primarily present as female (even though the boobage is smaller, they aren’t exactly non-existent). But how I dress… this is where it gets confusing. There are so many terms for this middle ground of gender representation. I think, for now, I’m just more androgynous. At least in terms of clothes and hair.

There’s a lot to consider. This, I think, will be a longer journey of figuring shit out. I’ve read some articles, tried to find the best term (androgyny and genderqueer are the closest, but even then… not sure). This is a process. I know that many people will say “only you can decide what you identify as” and I get that… I do… but damn… there are so many terms and I’m not sure what fits best.

Since the election in November here in the US and the Brexit vote in the UK, our society seems to have fallen into a free-for-all of hate and violence. I’ve posted on the vicious cycle in the past. Quite recently, in fact. Since that post, I’ve seen news of more vehicles being used to plow into crowds of Muslims during Ramadan. And then there’s 45 (I don’t use his name) breaking a long-standing tradition of the White House celebrating Eid. He also didn’t say a word on Pride Month, so at least his hate is consistent.

One thing I’ve noticed, at least here in the US, is that a large number of people killed or harmed in hate crimes are not “white Christian people” (for the record, if you haven’t figured it out, I’m a white somewhat-Christian female), but people of color as well as non-Christian religions and LGBTQIA. Vehicles plowing into crowds of Muslims outside their own mosques, LGBT being attacked and arrested for wanting to show their pride, black men and women being gunned down by citizens and police alike, etc… the list just keeps going.

This cycle is perpetuated by fear of the unknown. That fear becomes hate. Are there attacks by non-whites? Yes. But the ratio of white attackers to non-white attackers, at least in the US, leans toward more whites than non-whites. Here in Portland, hate crimes and discrimination are on the rise. And we’re a pretty damn liberal city. Our surrounding cities and counties are not so liberal, though, and we have a lovely mass transit system here. One I use all the time. If my queerness were more obvious, I might get some random jackass giving me shit. My mohawk isn’t quite enough. Remember, this is a very liberal city. And I’m not quite queer-looking enough to get harassed.

We fear what we don’t know or understand. This is fairly common human nature. The nature of our society. The thing is that we have access to more information at our fingertips than our not-so-distant relatives. If you don’t know something, look it up. Ask questions, talk to people. If you fear Muslims, go to the site for TED Talks (also, if you have Netflix, they have a fair number of them there as well) and look up the religious ones. If you want to understand POC or LGBTQIA, …. ASK! No harm in putting a question out there.

The only stupid question is the one that never gets asked.*

Ask. Listen. Learn. Seriously, learning isn’t just in a classroom. Each day, we have a chance to learn from our surroundings. Take advantage of that.

The more we know, the less we fear. Okay, except for spiders… that’s my weakness… I know plenty about them, but still don’t like them. But when it comes to humans, just learn. When we communicate and learn from each other, the barriers we build in our minds and our society will break down and we can work together.

That’s all for now… sorry I’ve been quiet.

~Amanda

(* – Although if you ask me, as an Asexual person, about amoebas or how we mate, that is one question you should keep to yourself. It gets old.)

My last three posts have been about sexuality/asexuality, dating, disadvantages of being Queer Asexual in this society. I will certainly continue on this general topic this month, being Pride Month and all.

This post will likely be a bit of that plus updates on other things….

Asexual Erasure: When I got home today, I saw that a friend on FB had posted an article on the erasing of asexuality within the LGBTQIA community. This is something I’d mentioned in one of the recent posts. We don’t get taken seriously. I highly recommend reading the article linked above. She did an incredible job detailing the shit we have to go through. Yes, ‘A’ can be for Allies as well, but being an Ally isn’t a sexuality… Asexuality IS. We aren’t aliens (although I do tend to feel like one that got left behind on Earth sometimes). We’re human beings just like everyone else (I hope we all are), and our lack of sexual attraction should have nothing to do with whether we, who are -at times- even more marginalized than others within the LGBTQIA community.

I am open about my sexuality because of this crap. I’m tired of people dismissed us, telling us we’re mentally ill for it… and the list goes on. So I’m “out and proud” and you can’t tell me or anyone else that we don’t matter just because we don’t get sexually attracted to others.

The way I see it is that with being Ace, I have less issues in my life. I have other things to do with my time than go to bars and clubs and be treated like a piece of meat. I have many hobbies. I like my hobbies. I don’t need a bunch of horny assholes trying to get in my underwear to tell me that I’m a real woman.

Storage: Two days in one week… that’s pushing it for me. I had an appt to trim up my mohawk downtown today, so after that, I headed up to storage. I didn’t get very far, but did do some shifting around of things. I even found a jar thingy of hair stuff to spike/play with my hair.

Note to self: learn the lengths for hair clippers… do not do a 1. Unless you like having hair that almost passes for military.

This is for all the assholes who treated me like shit.

Portia is sleeping… for now. With a full moon in a couple of days, her antics have ramped up. It’s funny and adorable, but when I’m trying to sleep at 3am and I heard these thuds because she’s playing on the hot tub cover…. it isn’t so cute.

*thud*chirp*squeak*thud*thud*scrabble*thud*squeak*thud*

I’m still exhausted and dealing with pain… I just about have all the “tools” needed to start organizing some of the stuff I have here. Gradually…

Being asexual tends to either get rude/lewd comments or dismissive remarks.

I’ve heard the “amoeba” crack so many times, it’s permanently etched in the back of my brain. Yet every person who says it thinks they’re being all cute and funny.

You’re not. Please… just stop.

I get the “maybe you need to try dating women. You might be a lesbian after all.”

I am more aesthetically attracted to men than women… by a LONG shot. Can I appreciate the female form? Yeah, but I’m not attracted to them.

“You just haven’t found the right guy yet”
“Maybe it’s a libido/hormone thing.”

I could go on…

For the record, asexuality is NOT a physical/hormonal/libido thing. It’s how our brains are wired, not the hormones. Some of us have active libidos. Some don’t. Some are occasionally active. Doesn’t mean we act on those urges with others. (There are great food analogies elsewhere)

What IS a physical thing is what’s called “sex aversion.” And anyone, of any sexuality, can go through phases of being sex-averse. I am also sex-averse due to the repeated sexual assault from years ago. Some are virgins (they tend to think of the act of sex to be icky, for lack of a better word), some are survivors like me, as well as other reasons.

I’m on this topic as June is Pride Month. Some in the LGBTQIA community don’t see Aces as being part of the community. I’ve heard the “well, this is about sex and they don’t have any, so they don’t count.”

WRONG!! All sexualities are about the different types of sexual ATTRACTION. Not the act of sex. And yes, we count. A lack of sexual attraction is still a misunderstood sexuality. But major researchers of sexuality have recognized asexuality for decades. Yes, we’re different. We get some discrimination as well. Not as much obvious treatment, but it is there. Some others I know have been subjected to “corrective rape” which is such a back-asswards thing to do… we don’t need to be fixed.

As far back as I can remember, I’ve always preferred doing things like “helping” my dad with carpentry stuff, pretending to be a knight hunting for dragons in the overgrown lot next to our house, climbing trees, etc. I also had plenty of dolls and a playhouse all my own up on the hill. I dressed up as Peter Pan around 4th grade or so, and even today, I’m more comfortable on my own in a hardware store than a dress shop. I do wear skirts and dresses from time to time. But my hair is short (more like in a mohawk, but ‘details, details’) and I rarely wear makeup and do “girly” things. Although, when I want to, I can clean up pretty damn well.

This all comes up because of a conversation about an article a friend posted on FB about this girl who wasn’t allowed to join a girls sports team because her hair was short. She didn’t look “girly” enough. I can tell you that if she were my kid, I’d raise all kinds of Hell with that decision. The conversation on my friend’s post turned ugly pretty damn quick with a couple of people who say they’re Trans Allies, but from their words, they most definitely are NOT. Now, I’m not trans. For the most part, I am perfectly fine with being cis-female (although I’d love it if they ripped out my damn uterus and other parts… I have to be on hormonal BC because of severe hormone-induced headaches that can last upwards of two solid weeks). But I respect my friends who are transitioning or have transitioned.

I’m more like the girl in the article. Throughout most of my childhood and teen years, I had short hair in some form. Rarely did it go past my chin, let alone my shoulders. It’s thin and fine and does better short. Hair does not define a person’s gender. Never has, never will. At least it shouldn’t. Right now, in my 40’s, I have this mohawk. I don’t spike it or anything, but I love how it is. If people can’t see past my hair and understand I’m really quite female, then they’re the idiots. I almost feel sorry for them. My hair doesn’t define me, I define it.

So, then the thought cam to me this morning after catching up on the comments on said friend’s post: Men see long hair as feminine and when women have longer hair, they’re seemingly more dateable. Now, my sexuality is really what dictates whether I want to date or not. Currently, I’m in a “get the fuck away from me” phase. Partly due to my C-PTSD, and partly because I have yet to meet a single man roughly my age that I’m even romantically attracted to. There are other factors there. Such as understanding my sexuality to its fullest and that it means you aren’t getting sex on the first date. Seriously… how old -mentally- are some of these guys… 15?

The amusing thing is that when a man has long hair (which, when done well, is pretty damn sexy), HE isn’t considered more feminine… he JUST has longer hair. So I see double standards. Maybe I just don’t hear comments about masculinity and long hair.

I have short hair. I’m not homosexual. I’m not heterosexual either. And nothing else “in between” … I’m asexual, and currently more aromantic as well. I’m just not interested in any of it… but my hair has nothing to do with my sexuality.

(Yes, still crowdfunding… ignore the numbers on the YC campaign, those funds have been used up)

I’ve always been open about my sexuality. I realized I was asexual in 2009. I probably told that story in a much earlier blog post, but in short, I realized I wasn’t sexually attracted to men… then I thought maybe I am a lesbian, so I observed other women and realized I wasn’t attracted to them either… less so than men. I kept joking to myself that since I’m not attracted to either, I must be asexual, but I didn’t think humans could be, so I dismissed that idea and came back around again to men. Then I read about Edward Gorey. The term was brought up in an interview with him back in the 1970’s and he took it. He had no interest in any gender sexually or romantically. I read other things and delved into lurking the forums on AVEN and realized this was valid and very much me.

I choose to be outspoken about it because of the attitudes I get from people. To heterosexual men, at least some of them, I’m seen as a challenge. Even more so because I have no interest in dating. In recent years, I’ve apparently come across as shut down, so I wasn’t getting men flirting with me so obviously. The last several months, however, have been different. Even a catcall or two. Guys thinking Facebook is a dating service. Some people may see that as a possibility, but really, if someone doesn’t have a relationship status on their profile, then the option they likely want isn’t available (mine would be somewhere along the lines of “not interested, go away”).

I’ll leave the main details out of why I’m bringing this up now. I’ve had someone “flirting” with me via social media recently. Here’s the thing I’d love for him and others like him to realize: not everyone wants the “white picket fence” life. Not all women want to be treated like princesses. I know I don’t. I want to be respected for who and what I am and the life I choose to live. Many people who followed a more traditional path don’t understand people like me. And some of this doesn’t even really have to do with my sexuality. It’s just the path I’ve chosen in life. I don’t want the white picket fence. I don’t want to be somebody’s “princess” … to me, that would feel like imprisonment.

Some may wonder if I ever feel lonely. No. I don’t. I have Portia, and any future felines that come into my life, I have my music, books, friends. Yes, right now, I’m going through a really nasty spot without a place of my own with Portia. Struggling to find work. Struggling to get my storage space paid up to save my belongings. I hate being stuck like this. In between homes. But as I build my life back up, I’ll feel more grounded and independent.

Bringing the previous paragraph back around to the main subject, there’s always this concept that folks press on us single people… that we have “our other half” as if we are incapable of being complete human beings all by ourselves. I am a complete person. I don’t need someone in my life to complete it. Having someone to pal around with and do stuff with might be nice. But I don’t need it. This Dragon flies solo and is very happy to be doing so.

As soon as my migraine and toothache (severity of 15 on the 1-10 pain scale), there will be a longer blog post coming. If you wish to know what it’s about, look for my posts on being asexual. Only this time it’ll be from Dragon’s perspective.